07/01/24 - Ivy House - Willow

Weight - 8lb 15oz

Catch - 5 F1, 13 Roach, 6 Skimmers, 2 Perch

Weather - Cold. Cloudy with sunny periods. Northerly breeze.

Match - Winter League - rd 5 (48 fished) - 3rd in section

The penultimate round of the Winter League and my turn for Willow Lake. With the weather turning colder I really fancied drawing the deeper pegs, 23, 33 or 34, however ended up on p20. Not ideal, but not the worst and the last 5 matches on Willow I have been on either p19 or p20, so I knew the contours of the swim.

I had the point of an island to target and on the pole line, it was shallower to my right and about 4ft out in front.

Starting on the straight lead and corn to the point of the island hoping for an early carp and after 30mins I didn’t have a bite.

Switching to the pole at 14m, feeding a nugget of groundbait (50:50 mix of uzit bubblegum & crushed expander) with a few micros, fishing a 4mm expander I soon caught a couple of blade skimmers and a F1. However, I was bumping a few small fish and switched to a maggot rig with .10 bottom and 20 hook, attached to a 5 elastic, fishing a single maggot I continued catching including a few more F1s.

Of the anglers I could see, with the exception of Neil opposite on p27 who had caught a couple of proper carp, I was doing OK.

After a couple of hours I tried my short line which I had fed with groundbait and kept topped up with maggot, but all I caught were tiny roach, so didn’t waste too much time on this as I felt I needed to catch some proper fish.

The 2^nd half of the match was more of a struggle, I set up 2 new swims, one positively fed with groundbait and the other negatively fed. I had hardly had anything over the positive swim and only a few more silvers and another F1 over the negative swim at 16m.

By this time the light was terrible with the ripple, the sun was in my eyes, and it was getting colder. I tried a mini method with groundbait and dead maggot towards the rope, but no bites. Back on the 16m line I tried varying my feed, hoping for a few more F1s, but only caught a few more roach and blade skimmers. As I was catching very little, I tried for a carp towards the point of the island in the last 30 mins where I had been pinging 6s and corn all match, but no bites.

In the end Neil on p27 easily won the section with 5 carp for 41lb, Jason on p23 had a late carp to add to his F1s to claim 2^nd beating me by less than 2lb. It was tough going on this lake with Mark to my left on p19 weighing 5oz and Jamie on p21 weighing 4lb, so I was pleased to get 3^rd.

1.    70-  0 – Joff Rogers – p1 (Old Match Lake)

2.    50-  4 – Steve Waters – p10 (OML)

3.    50-  0 – Matt Hamilton – p50 (Kingfisher)

4.    44-12 – Carl Mulford – p10 (Heron)

5.    43-  8 – Dwayne Seed – p21 (Heron)

6.    41-  9 – Neil Morgan – p27 (Willow)

06/01/24 - Ivy House - Kingfisher

Weight - 6lb 5oz

Catch - 5 F1s, 1 Perch

Weather - Cold start. Sunny start, then cloudy. Light breeze.

Match - Open (10 fished) - 6th overall

Still no car as Volvo is still unable to diagnose the electrical issue! As I didn’t want to miss the Winter League I hired a van for the weekend.

Following a week of torrential rain, it finally stopped yesterday, but that meant it had turned colder. We were all on Kingfisher today which was still coloured after all the rain, but at least the venue hadn’t flooded thanks to the groundwork to increase the height of the bank running along the brook.

At the draw everyone wanted to draw the high 40s, as this has been the form area recently, however I found myself on p38 at the other end of the lake.

I expected a hard match, but to be honest not this hard. I started off fishing tight to the far bank and then the bottom of the far shelf, fishing maggot over Uzit Crushed Expander and never had a bite.

I eventually caught an F1 over my short maggot line, but that was the only fish I had at the halfway stage.

With 2 hours remaining I decided to big pot some ground bait with dead maggot far to my left at 16m, just to try something different and caught 4 F1s on dead maggot, which was a pleasant surprise.

I tried the same trick down my left margin and hooked a big carp, but the hook pulled. I must admit I thought I would have another chance, but it never happened.

A poor day, but I was simply in the wrong area of the lake. Baggy to my right only had 3 carp and 2 skimmers and Paul to my left had 2 fish, whilst the framing weights all came from the middle of the lake.

1.    53-10 – Phil Godding – p42

2.    25-14 – Chris Timms – p45

3.    21-12 – Steve Fox – p44

Silvers

1.      1-12 – Chris Timms – p45

31/12/23 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 30lb 4oz

Catch - 16 F1, 8 Carp, 3 Gudgeon

Weather - Wet and windy, with some hail thrown in

Match - Open (11 fished) - 7th overall

I was sad to hear of Dave ‘Dodgy’ Downton’s recent passing due to cancer. Dave had a big influence on my fishing as I moved from fishing the occasional club match to fishing leagues and opens.

I first met Dave when he ran a tackle shop in Yate and it wasn’t until he worked at Veals in Bristol in the early 2000s that I started to get to know Dave. He introduced me to my first commercial fishery, namely Ivy House. This also coincided with my decision to quit fishing the rivers competitively as I got fed up with the long walks, poor pegging and some poor fishing.

It was the trips to Stafford Moor I will remember the most as we spent a week in the lodges with Mike Etheridge, John and Rory Andres. I usually ended up sharing a room with Dave and remember one evening hearing giggling coming from our room and a whooshing noise. He was only under his bed chasing flies with a can of deodorant and a lighter. Unfortunately, I lost contact with Dave when Veals closed and he moved to be closer to Stafford Moor.

RIP in Dave, hope you are still catching.

Back to today. As my car is still stuck in the garage, it meant missing a couple of matches including the Ivy House Christmas match. It also meant I had to put back plans to travel up north to see Abi’s parents to later in the week and had no choice but to hire a car for the trip. I kept the car for the weekend, so I at least could do some fishing and decided to fish the open at Ivy House on Heron Lake.

There were 11 of us and I was happy with p11, although the wind blowing left to right was likely to be an issue and I expected it to be a feeder match.

I started on my normal winter approach of fishing the lead and bread to the far bank, which only produced 4 fish for about 7lb in the first 45 minutes, however Alfie on p8 was already on 9 fish.

I only set up 2 pole rigs, a 0.4g Chimp with a bulk and 2 droppers, and a strung out 0.3g rig just in case. When I switched to the pole, I could only fish at 14m due to the wind and a fed a small ball of Uzit crushed expander with maggot. Unsurprisingly the chimp rig proved to be better in the wind and by the half-way stage I was doing Ok with 15 fish, before a heavy hail storm came over.

After the storm the wind dropped a little and I was able to move out to 16m, switching between the 2 rigs to find the best presentation. On a recommendation I have been trying Guru F1 Maggot hooks, but lost 5 fish on the bounce which was really frustrating and prompted me to switch back to a Drennan silverfish match hook. Must say having tried these hooks over the last few matches, I’ve been unimpressed, and they will be binned.

After switching hooks, I started catching again, however the wind had picked up and I felt I had missed an opportunity to make the most of the favourable conditions.

I tried the feeder to the far bank, but only caught tiny carp, so felt I had to stick with the pole despite struggling with the presentation. My struggles were compounded when I lost a big F1 on a snag as I tried to net it, snapping my rig above the float. I managed to fish out the snag, expecting a big branch, but ended up with a keepnet! At least I was able to recover my rig as well.

To be honest I should have framed, as I didn’t fish my best match, but I was just glad to get home in the dry after the soaking we all received.

1.    57-  4 – Glen Picton – p9

2.    48-  0 – Stu White – p17

3.    44-  8 – Alfie Rhodes – p8

4.    44-  0 – Carl Mulford – p4

5.    43-12 – Pete Neate – p21

17/12/23 - Ivy House - Moorhen

Weight - 26lb 14oz

Catch - 17 F1s, 8 Carp, 4 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Chub, 1 Perch

Weather - Mild and overcast, with a south westerly breeze

Match - Winter League - rd 4 (48 fished) - 1st in sectio

No fishing last weekend, as my car had developed an electrical issue and it’s now in the garage. Fortunately, Volvo organised a hire car so I could at least fish this weekend and hopefully I will have my car back before the next weekend.

Today was the 4^th round of the Winter League, which so far hasn’t gone my way, and it was my turn for Moorhen, which is a 9 peg canal lake. Typically, in the winter you need to draw either end of the lake and avoid the middle, so I was less than impressed to draw smack in the middle which is also the narrowest part at 13m and so far this series 5^th in section has been the best result.

The only solace I could take was the space peg to my left. The first 30mins was spent dobbin firstly bread and then maggot along the far bank, catching 1 tiny chub. I tried feeding maggot, but this only produced a roach. In the meantime, everyone to my right were catching from their far banks and to be honest I thought a bad day was on the cards.

A switch to fishing at 13m to my left at the bottom of the far shelf, feeding a tiny nugget of Uzit Crushed Expander and micros, fishing a 4mm expander flavoured with Uzit Pineapple Cloud (a new product with 8 flavours). After a slow start, I started to catch a few F1s and the occasional bigger carp, feeding a tiny nugget of feed every put in. I was starting to enjoy my day and whenever the swim started slowing, I would move slightly further left.

With 2 hours remaining I felt I was doing OK as everyone had stopped catching, except for Andy Burns to my left on p29 who was catching across by the reedbed, including some better sized carp and was probably ahead of me.

My swim had slowed, so I tried my short maggot line which I had been feeding since the start, but this only produced a couple of silvers and felt I needed some carp to catch up with Andy.

I started fishing tight to the reeds, again fishing pellet over crushed expander/micros and fortunately started catching until the end, again moving further left to stay in contact with the fish.

It was a pleasant surprise to win the section as Andy came 2^nd with 22- 6 and Jamie Durrup on the end peg 35 had 21- 3.

1.    71-  8 – Matt Hamilton – p21 (heron)

2.    58-  2  - Rob Guppy – p20 (heron)

3.    57-  0 – Dave Strafford-Way – p2 (heron)

4.    54-  4 – Phil Godding – p46 (kingfisher)

5.    52-14 – Nigel Reeves – p39 (kingfisher)

6.    52-  6 – Steve Martin – p22 (heron)     

03/12/23 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 10lb 10oz

Catch - 4 Carp, 2 F1

Weather - Light rain to start, cleared later.

Match - Winter League rd 3 (48 fished) - 19th overall and 4th in section

The 3^rd round of the Winter League and my turn for A section (top and bottom bank) on Heron Lake.

Yesterday’s freezing conditions had been replaced overnight by rain, but I still expected the fishing to be tough going. That said I was still confident of catching a few, as I really like this lake in the winter, although I was really disappointed to draw p17 as it has come 7^th & 8^th in section in the first 2 rounds, so not a great draw.

I had also arrived without my bib & brace, so a big thank you to Abi for driving over with it, plus a dry pair of trousers and some lighthearted abuse!

Back to the match, I started on the usual lead and bread without any bites, so tried maggot over a little Uzit crushed expander, flavoured with bubblegum for no bites. This wasn’t going well, and another hard match was on the cards.

After an hour I eventually caught a 3lber on the lead & bread, which is a good size fish for the lake and other than Roy Booth next to me who had a tiny carp no one else had caught along my bank!

The rest of the match was simply a struggle, I just picked up the odd fish on maggot over crushed expander at various points along the bottom of the far shelf at 16m.

I finished with the best weight along my bank, but unfortunately got beat by 3 pegs along the bottom bank to only come 4^th in section, which is the best I could have hoped for to be honest.

1.    46-  1 – Jason Crump – p46 (kingfisher)

2.    41-12 – Gary Herman – p21 (heron)

3.    38-  8 – Jamie Dixey – p10 (heron)

4.    34-  0 – Graham Spiller – p37 (kingfisher)

5.    33-14 – David Stafford-Way – p10 (old match lake)

6.    32-  4 – Steve Waters – p22 (heron)

02/12/23 - Todber Manor - Ash

Weight - 21lb 8oz

Catch - 6 Carp

Weather - Overnight frost. Freezing fog all day

Match - Christmas Open (50 fished) - 6th in section out of 12

50 of us at Todber for their Christmas match across Hillview, Homeground and Ash. To be honest I wanted to avoid Ash, as I felt the other 2 lakes were likely to fish better, based on last week’s match. Therefore, I was disappointed to see Ash 67 staring back at me and the general feeling was I would be on the edge of the fish, with p69-75 likely to best area.

Despite the heavy frost there was only a little bit of ice around which was a relief and meant the ice breaker stayed in the car.

On the all-in I cast the lead and bread to the far bank without success. So, after 15mins I came onto the pole at 14m where I tapped in some micros and fished corn over the top and again no bites. In fact, very little was being caught, therefore I decided on a complete change of tactic and quickly set up a maggot feeder, cast 5m off the far bank for 45mins but again no bites. I even tried the pole and maggot at 16m, which at least produced a bite, but lost a large skimmer as the elastic had frozen in the top kit.

A few fish were now being caught to my right, but very little to my left. After 2hrs I eventually caught my first carp on the maggot feeder, quickly followed by another on double maggot sprayed with Uzit P-Nut.

In the last 90mins I had 4 more fish, 2 on the maggot feeder, then 2 more on the straight lead and corn.

I was definitely at the wrong end of the lake today as P62 & p63 both blanked which included Pete Upperton, Ash Tomkins managed one carp 30mins from time, so really hard. The further you moved up the lake, the better the weights, with only 58lb needing to win the lake, so well done to Simon Stacey who caught on the lead and bread.

Despite not getting above freezing all day the fishing was excellent on the other 2 lakes. I didn’t hang around for the prizes and got a surprise text from Mark when I got home to say I picked up £30 for 3^rd in the section super pool.

1st: Pemb Wrighting 242lb 6oz (78 HG)

2nd: Martin Rogers 236lb 0oz (49 HV)

3rd: Gary O'Shea 214lb 10oz (87 HG)

4th: Mark Poppleton 214lb 4oz (58 HV)

5th: Roger Hayton 207lb 6oz (48 HV)

Section A: Pete Neate 204lb 12oz (47 HV)

Section B: Adam Tester 166lb 4oz (55 HV)

Section C: Simon Stacey 58lb 6oz (74 ASH)

Section D: Tony Gilbert 157lb 0oz (84 HG)

30/11/23 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 53lb 14oz 

Catch - 25 F1s, 11 Carp

Weather - Overnight frost. Cold & grey.

Match - Open (5 fished) - 1st overall

I booked a day off to fish the Thursday open on Heron to practice for Sunday’s winter league. However, due to the freezing conditions only 5 turned up, although I was pleasantly surprised to see the lakes weren’t frozen.

It probably didn’t matter where we drew, but I was happy with p10 which is my favourite winter peg as you can reach the bottom of the far shelf at 14m. Also, the F1s seem to migrate into this area for the winter.

I started on the lead and bread cast to the island and caught an F1 on my 2^nd cast. Over the next 90mins I would catch a couple of fish and then have to cast a bit further along the bank to stay in contact with the fish catching a further 11 fish.

When bites dried up on the lead, I switched to the pole at 15m over crushed expander flavoured with Uzit bubblegum, toss potting maggot over the top. To keep the fish coming I had to set up new swims right and left, moving out to 16m, still feeding a little crushed expander and toss potting maggot over the top.

Other than a 30min spell when I couldn’t get a bite, I had a lovely day despite the freezing conditions.

1.    53-14 – Ken Rayner – p10

2.    31-  8 – Tim Hadland – p8